Transparency

Transparency at Corbett School District

Transparency has been a much talked about issue for voters in Corbett in regards to the School Board over the past 8 years. It has been used as a platform in at least three recent elections as new candidates come forward to challenge the long time CSD board members. Read here for an explanation of the two “sides” to the CSD issue.

School Board Meeting Agendas and Minutes

School board agendas are historically not complete or ready for board members ( let alone the community ) until many times the day of the meeting. New agendas with changes and additional information are presented to board members at the board meetings and board members have gone on record, including recent board Chair Mark Hyzer, requesting that these agendas be available in time for adequate review by the board prior to meetings. School board meeting minutes in Corbett have routinely taken months to post to the district web site after each meeting. For those not able to make meetings but that try to follow along, this has been frustrating.

Any referenced addendum, document, submitted letters from parents etc. are not available unless you make a formal request for public documents from the district and the district will charge you per page. The Deputy Clerk and the Superintendent have ignored requests to have meetings officially recorded and transcribed. ( At the 4/17/13 board meeting the Superintendent complained how time consuming it was to get minutes/handouts etc. scanned and posted after questions were sent to him about the missing minutes on the district web site. )

Personally I have emails going back several years asking the board and the Superintendent directly, about board minutes not being posted. More than one community member has offered time/funding to help with this. ( A simple $200 purchase of an all in one printer that scans documents to pdf is really all this would take. )

Since the board/Superintendent have not approved recording the meetings themselves – there are now at least a couple people recording these board meetings and sharing them with this site, so that there is an actual record of what is said. ( After reviewing these recordings of our board meetings, and then comparing these to the minutes that are going on the record, there is clear “editorializing”. )

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Only Good News

Many documents submitted for the record, or even spoken to during public comment periods, are not mentioned in board minutes. In other words, someone wouldn’t know to request them, because they are not mentioned, or not clearly, in the official minutes. This has been improved slightly over the past 2 years.

My husband and I have sent letters to the school board sharing our concerns and asking questions over the years. I have specifically requested our information be part of the public record. Not only have we never received a response from the School Board to any of the issues, questions or letters …. most were never added to public record. After realizing the board was being directed by the Superintendent not to respond to this information, I then decided to start this web site to ensure there was one place that documented what has happened in Corbett with regards to the School District. – M. Schmidt

Another example of controlling the ‘story’ in Corbett Schools was when the petition to Keep Corbett Schools Small was presented in January 2011. It is mentioned in such a way that anyone reading the minutes would not understand that a petition was submitted.

Community members who stand to voice their opinions may have their names mentioned, but their comments are rarely added to the record.On the other hand, the board meeting minutes systematically list those coming forward to speak highly of the school and their accomplishments, in much more detail. ( Including a campaign to bring back “graduates” to praise the changes at Corbett and testify to the board to stay the course. )

* There is nothing wrong with good news. What is wrong though, is ignoring ( leaving out of the public record ) and not responding to those concerns or feelings of community members that also take the time to come forward. This can’t be simply oversight as the below example demonstrates quite clearly.

No “resources”?

When this issue of not including documents to the public record has been pointed out, CSD maintains that it has been an issue of funding and manpower to accomplish these tasks in a timely manner. While several community members have offered to come in to help scan these documents, to aide in the transparency issues CSD faces, that help has never been invited in and the documents remain out of sight.

Or “only for some” resources?

When a couple teachers at CSD organized a letter writing campaign in support of Superintendent Trani and presented these letters for the December 2011 board meeting, CSD was somehow able to find the “resources” to post an 85 page pdf document on their web site almost immediately.

This 85 page document included all letters and documents from the meeting in December 2011. Actually, more accurately, it included all letters of support, of which the large majority are from teachers or teachers’ friends and family but the few letters that were not as positive in light, that were also submitted for the record in December, were oddly missing from the packet for download. (CSD must have run out of resources.) The loyalty and adoration the staff obviously feels for their employment and superintendent is wonderful but it does give CSD the appearance of “stacking the deck” when it comes to having the “resources” to post positive letters but no time or “resources” for other opinions.

* There was not a public invitation to the community at large about sending in opinions about the school, school board or Mr. Trani etc. Instead, those “in the know” or “on staff” were invited to send letters of support and these are the letters that CSD posted in record time.

People that do try to give CSD the benefit of the doubt ( or even those that continue to commit their unwavering support ) should be fair minded enough to recognize this is NOT the best example of how a school district behaves. Others will say it is a perfect example of how OURS does.

* UPDATE/2013: I was very happy to hear that Director Calcagno’s recommendations for “BOARD BOOKS” was approved at the April 2013 board meeting. This will go a long way to help improve transparency in the district. This system will help compile and distribute meeting notices electronically and create a searchable web-based archive. This can be a positive step towards involving more than the handful of audience members that typically attend board meetings. I think this will also help our voters make more informed decisions on what is actually happening in our district and how our board members are actually representing ( or not ) their constituents.

4 Comments

Would transparency extend to the community learning which board members gave Dr. Trani ‘zeros and ones’ (lowest possible scores) on his professional evaluation?

Would transparency extend to a board member resigning once it became known through adequate sunshine that this board member provided false witness on another human being’s professional record?

Let’s be clear: it is one thing to disagree with the Superintendent and that is a perfectly valid reason to vote against renewing his contract. But choosing to blackball his professional record with falsehoods is morally wrong. It is also proof that this board member is willing to bear false witness under the cloak of closed doors. Shameful and cowardly!

I agree transparency is beneficial to all. But that also means board members should be subject to the same standard!

Once the community learns that at least one of its board members lied (on the record!) during their evaluation of the Superintendent, then we will have distributed the light evenly and truly achieved transparency.

Thank you for taking your time to come to the March Board meeting, I hope that the next time you come to a meeting you would please come up and introduce yourself. I try to meet the “new faces” I see at our meetings, but the opportunity did not present itself at that meeting.

I would like to address the Superintendent’s evaluation process as that appears to be your main concern.

The Superintendent can receive scores of 0-5, with 0 being “Not observed” and 5 being “Exceptional achievement”. When a board member gave a score of 0 on a category, that category dropped from an average of 7 people, to 6 people, so the Superintendent’s score was not affected by a 0. If there were three or more board members who gave a ranking of 0 on a line item, that line item was completely tossed and did not go into the overall evaluation score. A score of 0 was “neutral” and did not affect the overall evaluation.

The Superintendent’s evaluation is based on an average score, and it was explained to me during training conferences, that the reason behind this is because you are going to have board members who agree with how things are going, and board members who are not. That is why the only number that is put in the Superintendent’s file is the Overall Average score. That is the only one that counts on their permanent record, that is the only one that is to be released to the public. Dr. Trani did not receive a zero on his professional score, he received a 3.392, a score that means he “meets expectations”.

It is suggested by OSBA that the board meets once a quarter in executive session to discuss how individual board members view the Superintendent’s progress in different areas. The idea behind this is so the Superintendent is not surprised by the evaluation they get at the end of the year, but receive direction during the year on where strengths and weakness are seen. It is unfortunate that our board does not do this, but I have brought it up in past meetings and was told that Dr. Trani tells us how he is doing each month, so we did not need to meet. Is this meeting something I would like to see us do? Yes it is. Hopefully it is a practice we can change in the future.

The only thing I can say regarding your impression on the scores that I gave the Superintendent is that it is incorrect. I do understand it was the impression a lot of people were left with, and for that I am sorry.

I would also like to thank you for understanding that I was only voting against the extension of the contract. Most people do not appear to be aware of the fact we have a three year rolling contract and that we extend the contract each year without allowing the original to timeout. My feeling on this is we should allow the contract to run its course and renegotiate at the appropriate time, or put a No Specific Cause clause into the contract for balance, as other districts do who have rolling contracts. I would have no problem voting to continue the rolling contract should we agree to add this item.

As for disagreeing with the Superintendent, I have been hearing this a lot lately and I’m not sure what we are supposed to be disagreeing on. What I can tell you is what I want to see happen in our District. Here are the top four:

1. All students getting the individual attention they need from a teacher or instructional aide to be as successful as they can be. (Yes, I know funding is an issue, but this is what I would like to see!)

2. Options open to all students to choose the educational path they would like to go down. (40-40-20 is now out there, and its a good thing! My student attends Mt. Hood Community college right now through the Gresham/Barlow web academy. He is getting his Senior year credits, while also getting his College credits. I have asked Dr. Trani during a Facilities Use meeting if we can implement a program like this for Corbett students and he was not open to the idea at the time, but maybe this is something we can re-visit Also, I was approached by an Administrator at the Springdale Job Corp wondering if we would be interested in teaming with them to provide more opportunities to students on both campuses. I told her I would be happy to sit down with her and meet with the Superintendent when she was ready to see if this was something we could do that could help all students. How great would it be to open up more opportunities for the students and families who attend our District!)

3. Secure environment for all students, teachers, staff, administration and community members. (There was a lot of concern following the school shootings about a School resource officer. The cost was presented by the administration to the board members as being around $125,000 for an officer and seen as something the school could not afford. I have been talking with various members of the Multnomah County Sheriff Department regarding this since the shootings, and met with Sheriff Dan Staton last week regarding how we can work together and make this affordable. His finance manager also attended the meeting and it looks like the cost is closer to $150,000 but with some work may be brought down to about 1/3 of that for the school to have to pay. The Sheriff’s Department would like to see another officer up in this area, the Forest Service is asking for assistance up here and could help with some of the cost over the summer and the Sheriff is wanting to work with Commissioner Diane McKeel and Chair Jeff Cogan to make this happen for Corbett School District. Sheriff Staton said he has also received a call from Superintendent Trani about this and will be meeting with him this coming week. My goal was to be able to present a number the school could afford during a presentation by the Sheriff’s department, now it looks like we might be able to get the numbers pinned down before the upcoming budget meeting 🙂

4. Safe environment for all students, staff, teachers, administration and community members.(Let’s face it, there is more bullying being done then when we went to school. Why? Because there are more opportunities for it to happen. Cyberbullying, physical bullying, name calling, face-booking and so on. Rachel’s Challenge has come up in past board meetings, how great would it be to take that plan and run with it.

Here is something done by the student’s at North Gresham Grade school that I shared on My facebook page:

”
Students at North Gresham Grade School started their Wednesday with the school’s weekly assembly. But when a group of students took off their coats to reveal pink anti-bullying T-shirts, everyone knew the message for the day. Fourth grade student Hannah Anderson spoke to her fellow students at the assembly to tell them she’d been bullied in the past. She said that was a lot harder than confronting a bully. “A lot of my friends get bullied and I try to help them, and so I’m not really afraid of that,” she said. Fifth grader Khemren Pruganan also has experience with bullies. “I’ve seen somebody calling somebody names,” Purganan said. “So I told them to stop and they didn’t stop, so I told a teacher. “Hurting someone or hurting their feelings and making them, like, sad is just not good good.”The idea of a day-long educational event was the brainchild of parent and volunteer Denise McCloud. She’s lived in Canada, where schools everywhere spend the final Wednesday in February focusing on the issue.
”

If you believe that the Superintendent and I disagree on any of these items please let me know.

I appreciate greatly the time you have taken to explain, clarify, and detail a response to my concern. I respect you meeting my challenge with facts, and all of what you provided will be incorporated into my opinion- which like a river is purposely fluid.

It is a good problem to have many parents and community members at odds over their school district’s fate. In Gresham Barlow, we rarely saw any commitment from community.

I like to think that I begin at one point and end at another. Life is filled with many pit stops and many new things are learned along the way.

As I journey deeper into the community of CSD stakeholders, I would like to get to know everyone and extend that transparency to myself along the way,

In fact, I lack many of the facts. So did you and everyone else at the moment you embarked on a journey to trailblaze your child’s fate.

I hope that this web property stands, as missioned, to be a community collection of information and opinion. And I hope that the definition of community can understand that our borders are shared in many ways, especially if defined as a community of students.

Your response gives me newfound hope. I look forward to being part of the discussion and will certainly look to introduce myself at the next meeting.

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If We Build it They Will Come

The County Application to increase the district population in 2013 was controlled by Superintendent Randy Trani. This was done without the school board's involvement or community input.
CSD can now enroll 1,382 students and 80 staff (for the main campus only) and CAPS in Springdale is allowed 268 students and staff.

This now brings the District's allowed total to 1,730 students and staff. Over 1,000 more than local resident students today.